Toughness runs in the family / Stanfill, Cal put to test in rugby tournament

Published 4:00 am, Friday, April 15, 2005

His father is a former SWAT officer who once participated in a hostage rescue assignment in which three armed suspects were shot dead.

His mother is a CHP officer who had a car run over her lower legs while she physically restrained a suspect high on PCP.

His older brother tore up a knee playing the game he loves.

What that means is Cal sophomore Louie Stanfill cannot expect much in the way of sympathy when he comes home with a broken thumb courtesy of the game he loves, the same one as his brother Jake.

There's no crying in rugby.

"With physical pain, it was 'Shake it off,' " Stanfill said of the family approach.

There are tears of joy, however, at the camaraderie gleaned from playing hard, playing well and paying homage to the game in the process. Winning an outrageous amount is nice, too.

"A rugby game is painful," Stanfill said, running a finger along the fiberglass cast on his left hand. "You know if you play rugby, you'll be sore the next day. You get out of bed and your legs are steel poles. The camaraderie comes from personal accountability and all the pain your teammates are going through."

For the last two decades, the Golden Bears have doled out pain to their opponents as the gold standard in college rugby. Coach Jack Clark's teams have won 16 of the last 21 national championships and are closing in on yet another.

Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf

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Event on 4/30/04 in San Francisco.
Cal's #5 Louis Stanfill, left, and Navy's #6 Will Cocos (right) are lifted up by teammates as the ball is thrown in to Stanfill.
UC Berkeley men's rugby team plays Navy in the Men's Collegiant semi-finals at stanford. Cal beat Navy 32-15.
Liz Mangelsdorf / The Chronicle less

Event on 4/30/04 in San Francisco.
Cal's #5 Louis Stanfill, left, and Navy's #6 Will Cocos (right) are lifted up by teammates as the ball is thrown in to Stanfill.
UC Berkeley men's rugby team plays Navy in ... more

Photo: Liz Mangelsdorf

Toughness runs in the family / Stanfill, Cal put to test in rugby tournament

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Cal (18-1) hosts a regional Round of 16 playoff tournament Saturday and Sunday at Witter Rugby Field, east of Memorial Stadium, with the winner advancing to the sport's final four April 29-30 at Stanford.

"We're itching to get to the (championship) game," Stanfill said. "We feel fit enough to fly around the field for 80 minutes ... to show everybody what we're all about and have at it."

Clark expects the Bears will be up to the task after a regular season notable for just one defeat, to the University of British Columbia in Vancouver on March 23 after defeating the Canadians five weeks earlier in Berkeley.

"We've been putting our guts into training," Clark said. "We've performed basically very well. We'd be disappointed if our best rugby doesn't come out now."

Stanfill is a part of that effort as a rugged forward who uses his 6-foot- 4 inch, 240-pound frame to good effect in scrums and rucks and line-out plays. He would normally hoist a smaller teammate up to challenge for the ball on line-outs, but the busted thumb will limit him the rest of the way.

"He's a big, aggressive kid. He plays pretty aggro," Clark said, using the Aussie abbreviation for aggressive. "That's his contribution. He has a pretty savage run in him each game. His moments in the match that are most impressive are physical moments."

The Stanfills know physical. Jake Stanfill, like Louie a forward, tore a knee ligament in a February game for the Bears, a development that pained the younger brother more than a broken thumb or separated shoulders ever did.

"Losing Jake was emotional for me," he said. "He's a leader and a talented athlete. It shows our strength as a team that we were able to get through that. He'll be sharing our victory at the end if we make it that far."

Then there are the parents, Roger and Debi Stanfill. Roger recently retired as a detective with the Sacramento County Sheriff's Department. Debi will retire later this year with the CHP. Both have stories to tell, now that their sons are old enough to appreciate what the folks did for a living.

In 1991, working SWAT, Roger was part of a team that breached the rear of a Sacramento Good Guys electronics store in which four gunmen held 41 hostages for more than eight hours. Three of the four gunmen were killed in a chaotic resolution minutes after three hostages had been shot and killed by their captors.

"Jesus, Good Guys," Roger Stanfill recalled. "Still to this day the largest hostage rescue attempt in America. In a way it was successful, in a way it was not. It could have been worse and it could have been better."

And of Mrs. Stanfill? "My mom has her wild stories as well," he said. "She was in pursuit of a guy on PCP. Her and her partner were wrestling with the guy on a freeway off ramp. She got both of her ankles run over but came out of it with just sprains. She's a tough woman."

His parents will be in the stands this weekend watching their son play a tough game. He hopes the outcome will be thumbs-up for the Bears.